EDITORIAL: Russian kids Smoke themselves into the Grave

In today’s special issue, we argue once again that Russia must be divested of the 2014 Olympic Games. A jaw-dropping recent report in the Moscow Times newspaper highlights the innumerable social problems that plague Russia, problems from which the Olympics is diverting essential resources at the cost of Russian lives.

The mighty MT reports that Dr. Leonid Lazebni, the Russian Surgeon General, announced that Russian children face a “catastrophe” because, in Moscow at least, three out of four boys and two out of three girls smoke cigarettes. This contrasts with an overall smoking rate in the capital city of 24.6%.

These figures are truly shocking, of course, but even more stunning was the Keystone Cops manner in which the utterly clueless Lazebni made his presentation and in which the assembled government officials responded.

First, he did not say a single word about the level of smoking-related disease being experienced by Russians, nor did he discuss statistics outside of Moscow in any detail, confirming once again the destructive parochial attitude that Russians regions, where most of its population dwells, don’t matter.

Second, in response government officials said little about expanding education programs to teach children why they shouldn’t smoke, nor did he call upon Russia’s popular national leaders, Putin and Medvedev, to speak out more against smoking. Instead, in classic neo-Soviet style, all Lazebni could talk about was placing restrictions on sales and advertisements. Because of Russia’s pandemic corruption, such measures are doomed to hopeless failure.

Some of the officials tried to blame, in another pathetic neo-Soviet move, evil foreign conspiracies seeking to do Russia harm. But in fact, as the MT points out, 90% of the traders in the Russian cigarette market are Russian.

One lawmaker called for raising Russia’s excise tax on cigarettes, which is shockingly the lowest in all of Europe. Yet, he did not have a word of criticism for the Putin government that is responsible for setting that tax, nor for the silence of Putin and his KGB cohorts on the issue of smoking, and he ignored the fact that Russia’s pandemic corruption would only mean the rise of a huge black market for cigarettes if such a tax were put in place.

Russia’s inability to grapple with an issue of this kind is readily understandable: With millions of dollars flowing to Sochi to build an Olympic venue from scratch for no good reason, the country simply does not have resources available to forthrightly address the challenge, and it has no tradition of reform and reorganization to help it change policies that have obviously failed.

If Russia spent just a tiny fraction of the time and effort it is directing towards the Sochi games on teen smoking, thousands of Russian lives might be saved. Instead, Russia is consumed with frenzied nationalism just as was the USSR, and seemingly hellbent on the same course of self-destruction.

“nor did he discuss statistics outside of Moscow in any detail, confirming once again the destructive parochial attitude that Russians regions, where most of its population dwells, don’t matter.”

Being responsible only for Moscow, the Chief Therapeutistof Moscow has no authority to speak about other “Russians regions”.

LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:

If your goal is to be banned from commenting on this blog, keep up your childish antics (some of which have just been deleted). You have been warned.

When you say “appears to” does that mean you don’t know?

Are you suggesting that Moscow is just another Russian city? Are you that insipid?

If you have a better candidate as an analog to Russia’s surgeon general, please offer it. We’d love to learn more about Russia. Pity you didn’t.

Are you suggesting that the chief medical officer in Moscow knows nothing about the regions and doesn’t care about them? Has no statistics available to compare Moscow to them? In that case, Russia is even worse off than we thought!

Are you really incapable of speaking to the TOPIC of this post, which is SMOKING BY CHILDREN? Do you really have no thoughts about that issue, and is it really all you can must to attempt ridiculous smears designed to distract attention from that embarrassing topic? If so, with “friends” like you Russia needs no enemies.

I personally am not familiar with Moscow’s medical establishment, and this is the first time I have seen/heard the name “Leonid Lazebnik” in my life, although the name Lazebnik is not uncommon among Ashkenazi Jews . And judging from the fact that you initially misspelled his name as “”Leonid Lazebni”, this is the first time you too have seen/heard this name.

All my information about Dr. Leonid Lazebnik comes from the Moscow Times article, which informally calls him “Moscow’s top doctor”, and from my google search, which shows him to be главный терапевт департамента здравоохранения Москвы – the Chief Therapeutist of the Department of Health of the City of Moscow:

The Moscow city authorities plan to completely ban smoking in Moscow restaurants.

Moscow City Hall held a round table where they discussed the problem of smoking in public places… According to the Chief Therapeutist of Moscow’s Department of Health Leonid Lazebnik… “But the future is even worse. In Moscow, 77% of boys and 55% of girls smoke. I think it is a national catastrophe,” – noted Lazebnik. To save Muscovites from cigarettes, the authorities at the round table suggested a radical measure – a ban on smoking in public places.

If you have a better candidate as an analog to Russia’s surgeon general, please offer it. We’d love to learn more about Russia.

Gladly. The Minister of Health of the Russian Federation is Tatyana Golikova:

Tatiana Alekseyevna Golikova (born 9 February 1966) is a Russian economist. Ms Golikova was appointed Minister of Health and Social Development in September 2007, at the request of Dmitry Medvedev.

Are you suggesting that the chief medical officer in Moscow knows nothing about the regions and doesn’t care about them?

I am not suggesting any such thing. What I am suggesting is:

1. This was a round table devoted to the issue of banning smoking in Moscow’s restaurants and public places. Thus, the subject was primarily Moscow, not Russia as a whole.

2. Dr. Lazebnik did talk about Russia as a whole. For example he said: “I think it is a national catastrophe.” It may very well be the case that Dr. Lazebnik did indeed say many things about smoking in Russia as a whole. It is just that the Moscow Times article hasn’t quoted him on these topics, just as it has not quoted any other things said at that particular round table at the City Hall.

Has no statistics available to compare Moscow to them? In that case, Russia is even worse off than we thought!

I am sure that statistics about smoking in Russia are indeed available. However, the particular Moscow Times article about the proposed restaurant smoking ban in Moscow chose not to provide any.

Are you really incapable of speaking to the TOPIC of this post, which is SMOKING BY CHILDREN? Do you really have no thoughts about that issue

Of course I do have thoughts. I believe that smoking among adults is terrible, and smoking by children is even much more terrible than that. I myself have reduced my smoking to fewer than 1 cigar per week, and I never smoke near my children.

and is it really all you can must to attempt ridiculous smears designed to distract attention from that embarrassing topic?

I am used to dealing with people who understand without saying that smoking by children is terrible. What upset me here were the accusations leveled against a good doctor like Lazebnik of “destructive parochial attitude” towards Russians regions. Lazebnik appears to be an earnest, honest and concerned doctor dedicated to fighting the ills of smoking. If I am too sensitive about unfounded accusations against Jews – I apologize.

Since you are very interested in Russian medicine, let me share the name of a very famous Jewish doctor, also Leonid and also from Moscow:

Leonid Mikhailovich Roshal (b. April 27, 1933) is a noted pediatrician from Moscow, Russia, expert for World Health Organization, chairman of International Charity Fund to Help Children in Disasters and Wars.[1]

Roshal has been leading the Emergency Surgery & Children’s Trauma Department of Moscow’s Pediatric Scientific Research Institute since 1981. In 2003, he also took over the Moscow Institute of Emergency Children’s Surgery & Traumatology, which is currently treating 60,000 children a year.

Dr. Roshal negotiated with Chechen terrorists during the Moscow theater hostage crisis in 2002. He also served as a negotiator in the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis, working for the release of children and trying to convince the hostage-takers to allow the hostages to have food and water. After the events in the Beslan crisis played out, he also served as the advisor to the medical teams that had to treat burn wounds on hundreds of children.

Since 2005 he is a member of the Public Chamber of Russia. He is also a member of the Presidential Commission on Human Rights.

Roshal publicly spoke out against the war in Chehcnya and the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

GORBACHOV & YETSLIN & PUTIN :
capitalist scum should be blamed for this!
Gorbachov enabled Yeltsin to take power and sell out and destroy what was good of Soviet union and he’s the one responsible for destroying the country with rampant crime,poverty,and despair which is the reason why so many young Russians smoke.
Putin is their heir in these destructive policies,he didn’t do much to erase disgusting crime and revive the glory of Soviet society.
He’s just more arrogant with his oil and gas revenues(which are mindlessly spent on futile projects)

‘Revive the glory of soviet society’!
What ‘glory’?
Did I miss something?

And of course, the number one reason that smoking and alchohol consumption is not only not discouraged, but rather is made easier/affordable, is that this gives huge profits to the present ruling class of Russia, the super-rich communist-hangovers.
Beware you communists! one of these days, the revolution is coming, and you (with Dino) will be swept away.

I’m a Croatian.
It’s not my fault i got an Italian name…
How do you explain the fact that alcohol consumption was strong even in the Soviet Union?
Only by the fact that’s it’s a thing unique to Slavs and our culture,in which alcohol has a strong role.
Croatia is 4th in the world in per capita consumption of alcohol.
I smoke too.
A revolution is coming,yes,you got that right,but it’s capitalists who are going to be swept away(into agricultural and other socially useful work)…

But!, why must you be so simplistic, in dividing the whole world into just two camps, ‘capitalist’ or…what, ‘communist’ (perhaps, your notion of some sort of, pure-communism?)
Aren’t there actually many other political/economic systems?
And, for your health, you do need to stop smoking, as you must know. It catches up with you, as you age.
So, why is it that you label, Gorbachev, Yeltzin AND Putin, as ‘capitalist scum’?
What a curious combination of names, and to call them, ‘capitalist scum’, is rather funny.
Russia, since the bolsheviks took over, has not had any real capitalism, i.e. as a free-enterprise system, and it does not have that now either.
And, of course, it was never a ‘pure-Marxist-Communistic’ state either ( at least not by the book, in that you are correct).
But, communism just does not work regardless.
Enjoy your good Croatian wines, but lay off those cigs.

Dino,
You musrt be smoking those funny moskvene
cigarettes , your brain is fried . Careful , you’ll
wind up just like your brain dead compatriot
who refers to himself as Archi Gulag . That
moron should call himself Archy Bunker , at
least then he could be funny .

3) Cigarettes are sold to children in shops and kiosks. Teenager can even by 1 single cigarette instead of buying a pack if he/she lacks money for the pack.

This environment hooks up teenagers on smoking. This is terrible because tobacco is the 4th worst drug, worse than marijuana and xtc. It is also very hard to give up if you start so early, especially with stressful Russian life.

This is very sad.

I think people in developed countries must press tobacco companies not only to behave better in their own countries but internationally. Russians authorities must also be pressed hard.

Unfotunately this situation is dire for the last two decades. It does not get any better.

Hahaha.
Soviet culture was an example of a new man’s culture.It was s magnificent attainment of a society free of violence of capital$
What their students learned at school will never be matched by any western society(Evgeni Onegin by heart-almost all Russian intellectuals know it still today)
Russian culture was destroyed by AMERICANIZATION and CAPITALISM,brought to us by:traitors and criminals Gorby and Yeltsin!
Let’s eat hamburgers ,coke and watch stupid mtv!

So Croat-Dino,
Do you live in Russia now? Or have you ever lived there? Or do you live in Croatia?
I certainly hope you don’t live in New Jersey!
(Remember, Putin officially backs the Serbs, the enemies of the Croats)-
Did you approve of the WWII Croatian Nazi State?
For all your mixed up garble you have expressed here, perhaps you would be better off eating McDonald’s hamburgers, drinking Coca-cola, and just trying to be….an American.(?) At least most of us in America, are far more sane, than your words show you to be.
Or, maybe it’s just that English is not your language?…that problem can be forgiven, of course.
Well, or maybe you hit the Croatian-wine (or Russian rot-gut vodka?) bottle too much, AS NOT MUCH OF WHAT YOU THROW AT US HERE, ADDS UP.
Sorry for you, Dino.

Hahaha.
Putin backed the Serbs!!??
Putin became a president in 2000 while the Serb revolt lasted from 1991-1995!
That shows how much an expert you are,and how others should treat your opinions and “facts” here…lol..
Just to mention,Russia wasn’t against much(contrary to the general propaganda)
Russian orthodox fanatics did support the Serbs(as did Greeks for example) but we got S-300 SAM system in 1994-’95! A system that troubles USA since Russians said they’re planning to sell it to Iran this year!
And we got it 15 years ago.
Maybe the best SAM system ever(besides new Russian S-400)
I’ve never lived in Russia.
I do not approve Croatian Nazi state,it was a quisling and reactionary state.
I don’t drink wine,but beer and vodka.
So,here’s the evidence…The conclusion is on you.

The S-300 was bought from Ukraine, and it never was functional in the first place. And it is true Russia wasn’t against Croatia in the begining, because Milosevic, the Serb dictator didn’t like Yeltsin. He prefered communist Zyuganov. But later on, in 1994-95, Russia started actively supporting the Serbs, and constantly complained about the West allegedly prefering the Croats (although the West branded certain Croatian generals as war criminals later on). Russians even made a film about Serbs defending their village from Croatian and Slovenian invaders (no basis in reality, since Slovenia did not participate in Croatia’s war). And Zyuganov’s rallies against independent Kosovo… It all shows the pro-Serb stance of the average Russian when it comes to the Balkans.

It was probably a consequence of newly-revived orthodox Christianity in Russia,aggressive nationalism inspired by Yeltsin(to divert people from his poltrons stripping the country of everything valuable) and a desperate situation in Russia.
Yeltsin managed to degenerate Russian society,and,in 10 years,revert almost 70 years of progress…
That partially explains the stance of an average Russian i presume.
Serbian propaganda lies about Croatia being an extended hand of murderous Vatican(!)-German intrigants didn’t help either…

Putin officially backs only his a$$. If he could get bigger money from Croatia than from Serbia, he would be friends with Croatia. His friendship with Serbia consists of Russian takeovers of key Serbian firms, for a very low price. The Serbs do all this because they are ready to do just about anything to get Kosovo back. And they believe sweet lies from Russia, whom they view almost as a mother to Serbia.

Regarding Serbia, Russians are just taking advantage of a desperate nation that is in a serious crisis of identity, after Serbia started wars in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, and lost all of them.

And Dino is not a Russophile. He is a communist and a Slavophile.
It just so happened that the Russian communist state was the most famous one, plus Russians are Slavs, just like Croats. He would probably send Russians and Ukrainians and all other Slavs to the dustbin of history, to make way for a more modern, united Slavic nation, preferably freed of the shackles of Catholicism and Orthodoxy. There was such a project in the past, it was called Yugoslavia. I understand Dino’s reasoning because I used to think in the same way. But, reality is reality and dreams are dreams. And that’s why I today believe in Slavic friendship, not Slavic unity. And not even friendship at all costs. For example, I think Croatia should not be friends with Putin’s Russia, nor with Lukashenko’s Belarus.

Thanks for a nice and polite reply,for a change.
But it’s not completely true.
I wouldn’t call myself a communist(yet! i still have many books to read),actually i wouldn’t declare myself as any “-ist”,but Communism seems the best idea to me,and Marxism as a science is stunningly interesting and beautiful.
I’m a Slavophile,yes(as i’m a Francophile,or Germanophile)
But i’m against a “Slavic nation”.
I’m against Yugoslavia also.
I believe in Slavic friendship,in a close tied union of free peoples,based on mutual trust and cooperation(which is possible once the bourgeois-inspired aggressive nationalism is eliminated) which can be brought to life only in socialism.
I believe that Slavic nations should remain specific and special,i don’t want an artificial “Slavic nationality”,but i want a Slavic world of socialism and common good.

Well, Dino, you gradually reveal yourself.
Clearly you are of the younger generation, too young to know what is so very wrong with Marxism. You are an inexperienced dreamer.
You would do good, to listen to those who have been through the dark days of the various communist/Marxist/Nazi experiments, to find out, that none of those systems, works or is good for people.
But, how could you know such things, as you are still reading about…theories and imaginary utopian concepts….which others older than you, have suffered and died from.
You are living proof, that from one generation to another, mankind (Slavs or non-Slavs) seem to learn, nothing.
We just repeat the same lousy mistakes, and pay for it.

And, Dino,
Never in all of recorded human history, has there ever been a utopia, or a heaven-on-earth.
So, no human social construct can produce such a perfect society..
Forget that day-dream!
And, history also proves, that most of these utopian-efforts, have only produced hells-on-earth.
The problem, you see, is the flawed human character, our…nature
Most of us, really don’t care about each other.
Perhaps you will finally read enough, and speak to people who have lived through these utopian experiments, so that you learn this truth.
‘Socialism’ always becomes tyranny, and state control of the lives of the citizens.
Marxist-Leninism, produced millions of dead, and the Putin’s Russia we see today.

He is a 18 year old schoolboy, for Chrissake. What do you expect to hear from him Daniel? I am surprised you waste your time trying to prove something to a teenager.

What I am surprised about is that I sort of vaguely remember myself during the anguished adolescence. And I had only one thing on my mind, and it wasn’t politics, Communism or capitalism. Of course, there was no blogs or message boards to post on then…

Please spare me this patronizing tone.
I makes me look as a “dreamer” but my idea is clear.
Communism is the best thing ever which can happen to humanity.
Also,just because i’m 18 doesn’t mean that i’m an uninformed(saw a hammer and sickle and though,wow,man,i might become a
communist…)
I’ve read quite many books,and know fairly well about history of socialist movements.
If you just try to open your minds(well it’s hard if you have western education which intentionally produces retards) and see what’s behind the chains of your propaganda-fed illusion.
Read Marx and Engels,and THAN say you “opinions”.
I guess Paris Commune was a UTOPIA than,eh?

We learn and try to avoid the errors of socialism.
I have a 1500 page book on Soviet History and it know it almost by heart.
Please ,if you want to argument a specific phenomena,reply,but don’t state “socialism doesn’t works” just because you’ve been told so.
How wasn’t socialism successful (on USSR example):please don’t say GULAGS because they’re Stalin-time relic and are not a component of socialism…

Listen, I am going to respond to you only once. I have a rule not to argue with children or idiots, and you fall in at least one of these two categories.

To your surprise, I read Marx and Das Capital was a required part of the curriculum in our Western educational system designed to produce retards. At least it was in the school I went to.

Socialism has failed because individuals want to get ahead, it’s a part of being a human; socialism prevented that from happening. And to your question how socialism failed, I would not even mention the obvious absence of freedom and about 100 million violent deaths that it brought about. I guess this not important to you.

But it failed most spectacularly in economic terms, producing a sea of poverty, ranging from total destitution (Vietnam, China, Cambodia, Ethiopia, North Korea) to incredible poverty (the U.S.S.R., Cuba, Albania) to misery (Poland, Romania) to a low level of the living standard (Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Yugoslavia).

So, the people don’t want to see that misery or poverty ever again. They want to have and consume everything that Western Europeans and us Americans have and consume. And you, with your whopping experience at the mature age of 18 dare tell them they cannot.

So, at the moment, your rantings and ravings would not find many a sympathetic ear anywhere. But when you grow up in a few years, maybe there will be a place that you could go to to make your violent Communist revolution. Perhaps, you even get to be a martyr or a new Commandante Che or a new Pol Pot or something. But later, not now.

For now, why don’t you find yourself a nice girl (or perhaps a boy), if you already don’t have one, and devote more of your time to sexual explorations. I suspect you are not getting any or enough, and that makes you insane if we can judge by your “writings” here.

I guess it’s a matter of definition. To our U.S. thinking, Sweden, Norway etc. may indeed appear to be socialistic. However, they are not in those terms that Dino uses. They all have private property and the state does not own everything. So, they ain’t really socialistic.

A:
I have a very nice girl and i’m “getting enough”…
So i’m not having any libido frustrations as Freud would have said.
Back to the point:
Your whole concept can be sublimated to idea of “human nature”(so often exploited by capitalist apologists) :that “because individuals want to get ahead”

There is no such thing as human nature.
As you know,”human nature” depends on surroundings and objective circumstances.
It’s volatile.
That’s why a person is more likely to smoke if smoking is accepted in it’s society.
That’s why you,being raised in a capitalist society,accept it’s norms and ideas,and categorically discard the idea of socialism.
And the one and only purpose of socialism is preparing the basis for Communism,and in that sense it did fail,but objectively scrutinizing,for example,Russia,shows that socialism brought huge and almost unbelievable advancement(a half-colony becoming a second world power,that is an accomplishment)
I don’ know where did you get the ridiculous number of “100 million victims of socialism”
Give your sources and explanations,otherwise it’s just retarded slander.
Simple facts:compare levels of heavy industry development in 1910(when Russia was a half-colony) and 1940…
Socialism brought development unseen before(even China’s level of economical growth isn’t greater that Soviet one from 1929-1934…)
Yugoslavia(that’s where my parents lived in) had a standard of living comparable to averagely developed western-Europe countries…
And besides,East Germany had the best standard of living in the whole socialist block:better than Greece or Spain’s for example.
Again,you’re underestimating my knowledge just because i’m 18.
But i have read thousands of pages of text about Socialist history,and watched numerous documentaries etc…
I’m certainly more informed than you(or the so called larussophobe) are.
Your stupid estimation of “100 million” victims proves that,for example.(You’ve probably included 25+ million of Great Patriotic War victims in that number,or Mao Zedong’s stupid experiments(but just a notion:he wasn’t a socialist,he came up with a completely new ideology that relied on peasantry:an idea uncouthly to Marxist thought…
Das Kapital is a complex work,something you could sped years reading and thinking about it.
I suspect you only got “propaganda interpretations”..(as expected,since education in capitalist countries serves to preserve class division)

When the Capital and Ruling Classes apologize for:
Colonialism, the 14 Hour day,Class Privilege, 7 Day Working Week, Children in Coal Mines, the Opium Wars, the Massacre of the Paris Commune, Slavery, the Spanish-American War, the Boer War, Starvation, Apartheid, Anti-Union Laws, the First World War, Flanders, Trench Warfare, Mustard Gas, Aerial Bombing, the Soviet Intervention, the Armenian Genocide, Chemical Weapons, Fascism, the Great Depression, Hunger Marches, Nazism, The Spanish Civil War, Militarism, Asbestosis, Radiation Death, the Massacre of Nanking, the Second World War, Belsen, Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Racism, the Mafia, Nuclear Weapons, the Korean War, DDT, McCarthyism, Production Lines, Blacklists, Thalidomide, the Rape of the Third World, Poverty, the Arms Race, Plastic Surgery, the Electric Chair, Environmental Degradation, the Vietnam War, the Military Suppression of Greece, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama and Turkey,
the Gulf War, Trade in Human Body Parts, Malnutrition, Exxon Valdez, Deforestation, Organized Crime, the Heroin and Cocaine Trade, Tuberculosis, the Destruction of the Ozone Layer, Cancer, Exploitation of Labor and the Deaths of 50,000,000 Communists and Trade Unionists Last Century alone.
Then – And only then – Will I consider apologizing for the errors of Socialism.

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